Bigger profits is the real prize

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An enthusiastic note from Evolution Securities about Booker, which says
the “core plan” at the cash-and-carry business is to double sales through
its existing distribution network, seems to have taken Charles Wilson, its
chief executive, somewhat aback.

His priority is to raise profits by selling more into the catering trade and
more high-margin product such as meat and fruit and veg. Sales, about £3
billion in 2007, the year the company came back to the stock market via AIM,
are fast approaching £4 billion, though, so that target does not look
impossible in the longer term.

It is understandable that the construction of an air-polluting,
noise-blighting £22 billion third runway to turn Heathrow into the world’s
pre-eminent superhub caught the eye, but the Davies report into airport
expansion also made another radical suggestion: that — third runway or not —
Heathrow should start acting like the UK hub that it pretends to be